What moving from charity to agency life has taught me as a copywriter

For seven years, I worked in marketing and communications at Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Appeal, the Bristol Children’s Hospital Charity, promoting one cause in hundreds of different ways.

When you work in-house for a charity, every campaign, every piece of copy, every conversation is rooted in that one mission.

That changed after moving into agency life at Different Kettle.

Suddenly, it wasn’t one cause; it was many. Different audiences and different tones of voice.

Getting to grips with a new cause quickly

Working on the charity side gives you something invaluable: a deep, instinctive understanding of your audience and your cause. You know what resonates because you’ve lived it day in, day out.

In an agency, you have to build that understanding much faster.

That’s where my background in journalism has come into its own. During my Master’s, and through my experience in press at The Sun and podcasting, I learned how to get to the heart of a story quickly – to ask the right questions and spot the angle.

Those skills are essential in an agency setting. You don’t have months to immerse yourself in a cause; you have to get under its skin quickly, while still doing it justice.

Seeing charities from both sides

Having worked in-house, I know the realities that charities navigate behind the scenes.

Tight timelines and budgets. Multiple stakeholders. Complex sign-off processes. The challenge of balancing emotion with accuracy and sensitivity.

That perspective doesn’t disappear when you move agency-side. In fact, it sharpens how I work.

It means I’m not just creating ideas in isolation. I’m thinking about how easy they are to deliver and how they support the wider goals of the organisation.

At Different Kettle, that understanding is key. It’s not about parachuting in with a big idea. It’s about working alongside charities, as an extension of their team, to create work that is both creative and achievable.

Different causes, same fundamentals

One of the biggest shifts has been learning to switch between causes and tones of voice quickly.

At The Grand Appeal, I was writing for different audiences, but always within the same cause. In agency life, that changes from client to client.

But while the subject matter changes, the fundamentals don’t.

You’re still asking:

• Who are we talking to?
• What do we want them to feel?
• What do we want them to do?
• How do we make them care?

That ability to connect, whether you’re writing about a children’s hospital, animal welfare, or a humanitarian crisis, is what unites each cause.

Why fresh perspective matters

One thing I’ve come to appreciate is the balance between being close to a cause and stepping back from it.

When you work in-house, you can sometimes become so familiar with a story or an image that you stop seeing it the way your audience does.

Agency life brings a fresh perspective.

At Different Kettle, that approach helps uncover stories that might otherwise be overlooked.

But it’s not about replacing the charity’s voice, it’s about helping to refine and amplify it.

Different role, same purpose

Moving from charity to agency life felt like a big shift. And in many ways, it is.

But at its core, the purpose hasn’t changed.

It’s still about telling stories that matter. The difference is that now, instead of telling one story, I get to help tell many.

And at Different Kettle, that’s what makes the work so exciting: combining creativity with real understanding to create campaigns that don’t just look good but genuinely connect with the people.

If you want to know how Different Kettle can support your communications, get in touch at sayhi@differentkettle.com.

Chloe Smith – Copywriter

If you want to find out more about how we can help you with developing your approach to giving, then get in touch at SayHi@differentkettle.com